Important warning: This chapter, while not depicting any explicit scenes, contains a discussion of a sex act that Peter is worried about.

AWAKENING, CHAPTER 10: HONESTY

Peter emerged from his shower, clean and relieved, and quickly got dressed to leave for work. He combed his wet hair back with his fingers, feeling glad he'd cut it short for the summer; it would be dry in no time.

As he put on his socks and shoes, he reflected on the afternoon. He knew he'd been careless, and he scolded himself for letting his guard down. Louis seemed to be accepting of what he had witnessed, but that didn't mean Peter was happy about being discovered. He was still working things out in his head.

Peter had flirted with girls all his life. It was second-nature to him. He was the doted-upon little brother of seven older sisters, all of whom treated him like a prince, even if they were paupers. He had expressive eyes that spoke when he couldn't, and he was good looking enough to constantly attract attention. Girls liked him, and he liked them back. He'd loved Anja and at some level he always would.

It was only recently that he had realized how much he enjoyed flirting with boys.

He checked his watch, sat on the windowsill, and lit a cigarette. Louis would be ready in ten minutes. As he smoked, he thought back to the first time he noticed Tomasz, just four weeks earlier.

It was Peter's fourth day on the job, and things had started casually enough. A group of lads, clustered in an alley, were chatting about this and that, including girls. Mostly girls, in fact. They were all admiring Wanda, a particularly voluptuous girl who had joined the washing-up staff. All the young men agreed she was very pretty. She was also, Tomasz added, "Very Catholic." He leaned in toward Peter's ear. "No sense of adventure," he whispered, choosing him out of everyone.

"What about French girls?" Peter asked as the other boys ogled Wanda and discussed her merits in more detail. He could feel himself flushing as soon as the question was out. Why had he asked that? He knew Louis would be disappointed to hear him discussing females—especially French ones—as objects.

Tomasz answered him. "They will like you because you're English. But not me. They look down on Polish. But it's alright. I manage." Then he winked at Peter and went off to join some of the Polish men in conversation.

Peter remembered the little jump he felt inside at that wink. As Tomasz walked off and the other boys inched over to chat up Wanda, the girls from the tobacco shop skipped up to Peter, chattering teasingly in French that was a little too rapid for him to grasp. They were so pretty, yet his eyes lingered on Tomasz. And when Tomasz looked over his shoulder to gaze back, there was a sly smile on his lips, as if he knew something Peter didn't.

The girls were talking a mile a minute to Peter as he puffed on his cigarette, and he nodded and smiled warmly at them, but his head was swimming. Garrett at Stalag 13 had looked at him the way Tomasz just had. So had Martin, from the Hitler Youth. So had those German soldiers on the road to the Belgian coast.

And so had Tim, General Bailey's son, at that tea dance in February, in the dark corner at the end of the corridor. He'd looked, and then some. The kiss they shared, the culmination of weeks of horsing around and sharing that look, had made a light bulb go off in Peter's brain. Oh, that was nice, he thought. It was like some lads had a secret they wanted to let him in on, but he'd been terribly slow to pick up the hints.

Soon, Tim was back at Oxford, so things had gone no further. But Tim had taken a place in Peter's fantasies, next to Anja and Martin. That thought was enough to make Peter stick a hand in his pocket and give in briefly to the stirrings he felt. He gave himself a few small strokes before taming himself with a pinch. The moment of arousal came and went so quickly that he felt sure the girls hadn't noticed. He didn't realize Tomasz had.

XXX

"Come on, Pierre, it's a beautiful afternoon to walk to the restaurant." The cheerful words and the familiar face poking into the room broke his concentration. He got up and pulled the window shut, latching it to make sure Cosette didn't escape. Then he smiled at Louis and followed him out.

It was four o'clock as they set out, and dinner service would begin in two and a half hours and run until eleven. Peter stopped to light another cigarette as they reached the bottom of the stairs, then walked in stride with Louis.

"Aren't you going to say anything?" he asked as they rounded a corner.

"Say what?" Louis asked. He stopped and looked at Peter in genuine surprise. "Of course not, Pierre," he said. "We've said what we need to say."

"You're not disappointed?" Peter said as they stopped to wait for a crossing light to turn to green.

Louis took his arm and pulled him closer. "Disappointed? Yes, of course I'm a bit disappointed."

Peter's head was down. He was afraid of this.

Louis saw it and felt his heart go mushy. His poor boy, always hurting. "But not the way you think, Pierre. I don't mind about you and Tomasz. But you should have told me. We shouldn't have secrets. You were trying to deceive me."

"I w-w-wwwasn't, Louis. I was j-j-j-just, I was…"

Louis looked at him sympathetically. "You were confused. Yes, I see that. But that's why you must come to me. Always talk to me, Pierre. You know I will always be your friend. Your grand frère. Nothing can change that."

"Nothing? Because this… well, a lot of people, well…"

"They don't approve. Believe me, I know, and I don't care," Louis said. "You and Tomasz need to be discreet, that is all. And be good to one another."

Peter nodded, but he was still worried. "Are you going to say anything to him?" he asked anxiously.

"Only if I catch him doing a bad job. Or a good job," Louis replied with a smile. "Stop fretting. If you think you're the only homosexuals I know, you are sadly mistaken."

"Do you have say that?" Peter said sharply.

Louis looked at him with concern. Shame thrives on hiding, he thought. Being locked away, never faced. But it was a delicate balance with Pierre, always. And words had always terrified him.

"Chut, chut," he said softly. "The only words we need right now are these: I still love you, mon frérot. Nothing has changed."

"Bloody right it hasn't," Peter muttered. "I'm still me." At least, he was pretty sure he was.

XXX

It was after one in the morning when they returned home, and they quietly went their own ways. Louis took a long shower; Peter found Cosette and teased her with a string, laughing at her antics, until she was worn out. He gathered her up and wandered to his bedroom. As Louis emerged from his shower, he saw him through the partially open door, clad in pajama bottoms but no shirt. He smiled, vaguely missing the sight of him in a nightshirt, but it was 1946. In this day and age, not even Englishmen dressed that way for bed if they had a choice, which Peter finally did.

Louis hovered at the door. In more than five years of friendship, he'd had more "little talks" with Pierre than he could count. He'd explained every facet of sex. He'd had no concern about being candid, because he was confident in his knowledge of all these things.

And yet, right now, he was feeling a little out of his depth. He was going to have to swim anyway.

As he did every night, he came into Pierre's room, sat on the edge of the bed, and rested a hand on the blanket that was covering his stomach. The usual question—"What was the best thing that happened to you today?"—seemed wildly ill-suited to the moment, but he didn't have an alternative. So he went with the tried and true.

Peter, lying with his head on a puffy white pillow, stared back at Louis, genuinely relieved by the familiar question.

"I let you see the truth," he said, blinking and tipping his head to the side as he searched Louis's eyes. He bit his lip and waited for a response.

"Which is what, Pierre?" Louis replied.

"That I like boys. Boys, too, I mean. Because I st-st-still like girls, I really do. I d-d-don't have to decide… y-y-yet. But…" he licked his lips as he searched for the words and let out an excited breath. "I really like boys. I, I, I like Tommy."

"Have there been other boys?" Louis asked softly. Pierre shrugged, so Louis added in a teasing voice, "Crushes?"

Peter looked up through his eyelashes. "Y-y-yes, crushes. B-b-but not like this. Just one or two boys, and a k-k-kiss or two, and some… um… t-touching. This is, this is, this is… mmmore."

"Yes, I saw that," Louis said, winking.

"Shut up," Peter replied, punching him in the chest.

Louis made a show of rubbing the spot where he'd been struck, then laid his hand back on Peter. "Do you mind if mention something about your relationship with Tomasz, Pierre?"

For just a moment, Peter considered protesting the question as intrusive, but he trusted Louis completely. He could ask or tell him anything; he always had. And if Louis was asking, he had a purpose. So he nodded.

"I'm asking for a reason, Pierre," Louis said. "Perhaps you've already thought of this, but you need to be careful. You will still need condoms for certain things. So be sure to keep some in your drawer, all right?"

Peter's look of astonishment told Louis everything he needed to know, and for a moment he chastised himself for dancing around what he needed to say. Louis said kindly, "I am talking about la sodo, do you understand this word?"

Peter shrugged as he bit his lip and looked worried, a look that Louis mistook for naïveté. What Peter couldn't bring himself to say was what he was thinking. Tomasz wanted to try it, but he didn't want to think about this. He already knew from experience exactly how agonizing it felt when you didn't want it. A particularly brutal Gestapo interrogator had seen to that. Not even Louis knew; Peter's shame was too great.

"I, I, I'm not sure about it. It seems so fffffinal," Peter said. He was relieved now that he had decided to talk to Louis, because this was proving impossibly hard to discuss with Tomasz.

"Final how?" Louis asked.

"That it's the th-th-th-thing that makes you actually qu-qu-queer. Because if you do that, if you wwwwant him to do that t-to you, th-there's no d-doubt," Peter said.

Louis noticed the increase in stammering and, taking it for embarrassment, he couldn't suppress a smile. "Who is making up these rules, Pierre?" he said. Peter didn't laugh; Louis could see he was uncomfortable with the topic.

"Look," Louis said seriously. "It's the same with any lover, boy or girl. Don't do anything you aren't ready to do, and don't let anyone pressure you before you are prepared. You may eventually want to try this, and you may never want it. And the same goes for you—you must always be respectful of your lover and not rush him. Do you understand?"

Peter nodded, his eyes locked with Louis's.

"Good," Louis continued. "If you try anything together and you don't like it, then stop. Talk to Tomasz about what you do and don't enjoy. But also don't worry about labeling yourself. Just as you said, you like boys. You like girls. You don't have to decide right now. Who you make love with doesn't determine who or what you are. Just don't be afraid to be who you are, Pierre."

Peter looked up at him intently. He was constantly both startled by and grateful for the frankness with which Louis talked with him about what he still thought of as s-e-x. They'd talked about different aspects of sex since they met when Peter was fifteen, though Louis and everyone else thought he was older and experienced. He'd been seventeen the first time Louis sat him down to figure out what he actually knew—which was shockingly little in Louis's eyes. How Louis managed to be both delicate and specific, gentlemanly and worldly, was a constant source of amazement to Peter. He wanted to be just like him in so many ways, so confident and assured about something that Peter, like most people, loved doing but hated discussing.

"Alright," Peter finally said, almost breathlessly. "Louis, you're not disgusted?" He took Louis' hand and idly explored his fingers.

"Of course not. You already know this, Pierre. We have spoken about homosexuality before now. We both know men have been interested in you; now you are interested in them. Pierre, love is beautiful, wherever we find it. As long as Tomasz is good to you and not making you do things you're not ready for…"

"He's not," Peter interrupted, shaking his head adamantly. "He wouldn't. He's not like that."

"…Well, then it's no one's business but the two people who are making love. But Pierre, make sure you remember to love. Even if it's not forever, you can still begin and end with love."

Peter laid there looking pensive for a moment. Finally, he spoke up. "You're not going to tell the Gov, are you?" he asked.

"Why would you even ask that? You know I wouldn't speak out of turn," Louis said. "That's something you will do when you're ready. Alright? And you do not have to tell every intimate detail of your life. You may want some things to remain private."

Peter nodded.

Louis smiled gently at him. "Go to sleep, Pierre." He leaned down to kiss him goodnight, as he had done every night since he arrived in Paris, this young brother whom he loved so much. Only this time, Pierre wrapped his arms around Louis' neck and held on tight, let out a shaky breath, then kissed him back on both cheeks.

Louis pulled back, pleasantly surprised by the unexpected display of affection, and smoothed Pierre's hair off his forehead. "See? You are learning to speak French," he said. "Good night, frérot. Fais dodo et fais de beaux rêves."

Peter yawned. "Bonsoir, mon pote. Je t'aime tellement."

"You mean 'bonne nuit', frérot," Louis corrected gently as he tucked the covers around his Pierre and placed an extra kiss on his forehead. "Je t'aime de tout mon coeur. Remember that nothing will ever change that, Pierre."

"I know that," Peter said sleepily as Louis switched off the light.

Notes:

The exchange at the end:
"Good night, brother. Go to sleep and sweet dreams."
"Good evening, mate. I love you so much."
"You mean 'good night,' brother. I love you with my whole heart."